2016-05-03 17:52 GMT+02:00 Erik Baigar <erik at baigar.de>:
Dear Experts,
during discussing the Rolms I came accross the following question:
What was the first (Minicomputer) architecture which offered
memory- and IO protection? I'd define the minimum requirements as:
- Existence of a superuser mode (Rolm calls this Executive mode)
- Existence of a user mode (With at least two users, Rolm offers 4)
- In superuser mode, IO and memory protection for each user can be
set up individually.
- Any access violation is trapped and handeled by superuser code.
- Of course commands for mode switching and setting up the
memory and IO ranges must exist.
I have got a real machine (Rolm 1602) having this implemented
and dating from 1975. A document on this "Access Protection Module" as
Rolm calls it also is dated 1975. It consists of a microcode module
which realizes an extension of the 16 bit Nova instruction set and an
additinoal CPU module, taking care of the new modes and supervising
the IO- and memory accesses.
My question is not regarding virtual memory memory, but regarding
protection (IO and memory) to ensure capsulation of indivitual
processes - not necessarily for multi user environments but e.g.
for safety critical applications...
Probably OS/2 in 1987 was one of the first home computer OSes to
support memory protection (how about IO protection?), BSD on some
Digital PDP-* was earlier (1977?) but still after the 1602.
Any hints out there on other "Mini" architectures of that era having
someting similar?
Erik.
What about the Norsk Data series of machines, NORD-1, NORD-10 etc.
The NORD-10 had memory protection and paging. Circa 1973. According to the
wiki page the NORD-1 had an option to provide virtual memory. The wiki page
claim the NORD-1 to be the first mini to have virtual memory (1969). I
cannot really tell if this is true.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord-1
/Mattis